Today’s topic is “6 famous people you would love to have dinner with.” You can answer this with a list of 6 words, 6 phrases, 6 sentences, 6 paragraphs, 6 photos, 6 videos, etc . . . Every Saturday from Momdot.

1. Ryan Reynolds….great fellow Canadian, who’s super funny! -and not bad looking either. Even if he is married to Scarlett Johansson…I’d invite her too…she’s cute and I think she’d be pretty cool too since Ryan liked her enough to marry her.

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2. Bruno Tonioli from Dancing with the Stars(on the right)…he is everything I’d want in a best friend. We’d dance all the time, and he’d make me laugh with his crazy analogies!

3. Adam Shankman from So You Think You Can Dance…and director of some movies…he is so hilarious…(pictured here with Queen Latifah…who I’d also like to invite for that matter…I just LOVE her)

Do you see a theme here…I’d want funny people at my house for dinner.

4. Jean-Marc Genereux and his wife France …they are Ballroom Dancers/Choreographers, and judges from SYTYCD-Canada…after dinner I’d have them teach me some moves!

5. Ewan McGregor…the one crush I ever had that has lasted the test of time…I’ve had a crush on him since I was 16…everyone else I crushed on in High School…I’ve moved on from. It is awesome that he’s Scottish too…I have a soft spot for Scotland. (i’m half)

6. Ian McKellan-I just love him, he is such a great actor and I love that he’s played some great iconic figures. I also think its remarkable that he ‘came out’ so late in life and I love listening to him speak. His posh English accent is the best.

I was reading some blogs today that led me to MOO.

What is Moo? It’s a company that sells business cards, postcards, stickers, and greeting cards. But what is unique about this company? Well, they offer something called ‘Printfinity’ -meaning that your business cards can have a different image/design on each card. They also offer double sided COLOUR printing at no extra cost! The other thing I love about this company (from what I see so far) is that their cards come printed in your choice of premium stock-both being environmentally friendly. One is the ‘MOO Classic: 16pt, sustainably sourced, matte laminated.’ and the other is the ‘MOO Green: a sturdy 13pt, crisp white, 100% recycled and recyclable.’
MOO Business Cards – Go Green! Create customized Business Cards made with 100% recycled, recyclable and biodegradable paper.

One last thing I really love about this company, that I’m excited to try out for myself, is their ‘Mini-Cards’. They are half the size of business cards and also have the option to print multiple images in one pack. They are great for making gift tags and all kinds of neat crafts…you should check out their website for more ideas. Mini Cards are also great for personal information, like for example-your blog details.

They have 2 international online stores

MOO-USA & MOO-Europe

But they ship ANYWHERE in the world!

The first thing I have to mention is that CS4 is a collection of software that includes many programs including Photoshop, Illustrator, and Bridge. (to name a few) There are also larger collections you can purchase that includes Premier and After Effects as well as Dreamweaver, Flash etc. I don’t know all off hand but the Adobe website is very comprehensive and easy to navigate.

I’d also like to remind everyone that software piracy is ILLEGAL! I do not condone it whatsoever. That being said, I would like to talk about Bridge and how awesome it is. It has MANY advantages and uses, but I’m going to talk about using it for organization of media and batch functionality it possesses. I will be including helpful pictures.

So let’s set up the scene. You have a whole pile of images you have just been uploading to your computer but have neglected to organize. It’s a daunting task, so just keep just piling up and up. OR You’ve photographed your first Wedding and you have something close to 600 images to sort through before delivery. (post wedding workflow) The second example is very important for saving time, I have used Bridge numerous times to cut down on the time I’m physically working on post production because you can set a batch action to all your photos and walk away while it does it’s thing.

I’m going to start with opening up the program as if it was my first time. I reset the default workspace for this task, and re-organized to show you how to personalize your own workspace.

So this is what Bridge initially looks like when you open it. On the left, you have your folders, favorites, filters and collections. The centre is your content; this changes when you double click on icons or folders. On the right, there is your preview, metadata and keywords. For me, this workspace doesn’t work, so I change and resize the sections to suit my needs.

From either the favorites, or folders sidebar you can select the location of your files or folders that will be displayed in the content window. Within the content section you can double click folders to open subfolders and eventually you’ll see your images in this section.

Here you can see how I’ve dragged the sections around to make the content section smaller and the preview section the largest. The reason I do this is to see the pictures more clearly. This is important to me for weeding out the groups shot in weddings that have blinkers or people not looking etc. If you didn’t need to do this, then you might want the content section larger so that you could have an ‘at a glance’ look at all your files. I also minimize the metadata section as much as possible because the information is not that important for my needs, but it can be for others.

There is a slider in the bottom right that you can use for the thumbnails in the content section. Depending on how many you want view at a time combined with how wide you’ve adjusted the section to be, will determine what size you want to show. I usually like to have them in 2 columns of 2 rows with the size about what’s shown above, meaning I have to have my preview section a little narrower.

You can also view as a filmstrip with the thumbnails at the bottom. You can toggle between ‘filmstrip’ and ‘essentials’ (the previous view), you can also select custom workspaces under the ‘me’ pulldown menu. I prefer the ‘essential’ layout but it’s really up to personal preference.

Then under tools is Batch Rename, where you will have the option to rename in the same folder, move to another or new folder, or copy to another or new folder. To do the latter 2 options, you first have to select the destination folder, and if applicable-create a new folder. After selecting your destination folder, you have to choose what you want included in the filename. I always include a text field first, which can be a combination of letters and numbers and underscores, then I always include a sequenced number field which I make 3-digits long and start at ‘001′. If you are moving images from a number of folders into one new one, you would want to make note of the last number you sequenced. Bridge usually retains this info if you haven’t done any other renaming in between. You can keep adding fields to include in your filename, but don’t over complicate it. Don’t forget to make your images cross-platform compatible, meaning if you’re on Mac, select the ‘windows’ check box, or vice versa. This way if you’re sharing your images with family or a client, they can access them on their computer without any compatibility issues.

Filters are established a number of ways. If you apply ratings, labels or keywords, you can use this sidebar to only view your selections. For example, if I want to see only pictures that have a landscape orientation, I can select it in filters and then the only images I see in the content panel are the landscape ones. The portraits are not lost, only hidden. I find this helpful for batch actions which I will cover shortly. There are a variety of reasons for using filters and you’ll soon come to realize these for yourself, the more you experiment in Bridge.

Ratings and Labels are great for weeding out the good from the mediocre from the bad. I usually have the images sorted by date created and go through one by one and rate each photo. Blurry shots are automatically given 1 star and the great ones are given 5 stars and then the ones in between are 3 stars and the ones I can’t decide on are 4 stars. There are key board shortcuts for the stars, which I highly recommend using as ‘right-clicking’ can be super time consuming. Shortcuts are cmd(or ctrl) -1,2,3,4,5 (obviously for how many stars you want). So what I do is, using my ‘->’ arrow key, I go from the top to the bottom assigning ratings. Once I have rated all the images in a folder, I delete everything under a 2 star and then revisit the 4’s and 3’s. Anything 3 or under is deleted and only the 4’s and 5’s are given to the Bride & Groom for Print Selection. If you are opposed to deleting, you can always just move the unwanted images to a new folder entitled ‘NG’ or something to that effect. Labels are similar only they add a colour band under the photo that have meanings. These are handy when more than one person has to attend to the images.

When you right-click on an image, you have a number o options presented to you. To edit the image, you can select from a few different programs, but if you double click, the default is Photoshop. There are also many options you may have seen in word processing programs, or just through file management on your computer like ‘cut’, ‘copy’ and ‘paste’. Further tot hat, you can move/copy to a desired folder/destination. Batch rename is also available by right clicking, as well as label options, sorting and creating new folders. Also from here is where you can edit ‘RAW’ files in the Camera Raw program that comes with Photoshop. If you have shot your images in Raw format, here is where you can adjust exposure and white balance and other fine-tweaking. If you double click RAW file, you will automatically be taken to the Camera Raw software first.

In Camera Raw, you can adjust your White Balance to achieve the right temperature. If your image looks too blue, for example, this is a white balance issue. You can also fix the exposure by selecting ‘auto’ above the exposure slider. Sometimes this doesn’t give you the best exposure, in which case you can play around with the sliders, but don’t worry if you mess up, because you can select ‘default’ to go back to the original image. This also isn’t even permanent once you select ‘done’ because you can revisit the Raw file anytime from Bridge. If you want to make further adjustments, there are tools above the image for ‘red-eye removal’ and cropping etc. It’s a basic edit palette similar to Photoshop, but you can also ‘Open Image’ to go directly to Photoshop to make you adjustments there, but from Photoshop you will have to save new files. Also note, that you can select multiple RAW images and open them in C.R and ’select all’ so that you can make batch adjustments to white balance and exposure. I would recommend only doing this for images that have the same exposure etc. If your RAW files are good and don’t need any adjustments, then the only reason to open them in Camera Raw would be to further open them in Photoshop by selecting ‘open image’. Again, if you double-click a RAW file, you will automatically be taken to Camera Raw before going to Photoshop. If your RAW files don’t need adjusting, then you can do a batch ‘Image Processor’ to save them all as jpegs or other compressed files. If you don’t compress your files, you won’t be able to open them anywhere besides Bridge. (or other software designed for viewing RAW files)

Image Processor (tools->photoshop->image processor)is great for selecting all your RAW files and saving them as jpegs. ‘Open first image…’ is just so that if you have RAW files, it opens one image in Camera Raw first so that you can select the ‘Open Image’ button and the the rest of the files follow the same action. If you want to save them somewhere else than you’ll have to select the folder, but don’t worry…you can select ’save in same location’ and it will create a ‘jpeg’ folder within your original folder, so you don’t end up with multiple file types with the same filename. You then select the type -usually jpeg, and if applicable, you can resize to fit-you would use this if you need the images to fit on a website or something where the pixel size was important. If you don’t need to resize, then un-check this option. You can also include copyright info that will be included in the metadata of you file, for example, you wedding photo company’s name. You can run an action from here as well, but there is another section for doing Batch Actions so I will cover it there. I always include the ‘ICC profile’, I’m not sure why, but I’m guessing it’s also part of the metadata. Once you hit ‘run’, if you’ve got a few (like hundreds) files to process, this would be a good time to find something else to do, as this can take quite some time.

For doing batch actions, you will have to got to Tools->Photoshop->Batch. The most popular actions are ‘Black & White’, ‘Sepia Toning’ and ‘Vignetting’. Choose the action, then the source, whether it’s Bridge, a folder or an import. Since you’re selecting this from Bridge (if you have selected your images) you don’t have to change this, but if you have an entire folder to change to Black & White, for example, then choose the folder option and select the folder. You also have to select a destination folder, I usually just make a subfolder in the folder I’m pulling from named with the Action I’m performing, like ‘Black & White’. Ignore the ‘Override Save As…’ if there are not ’save’ or ’save as’ functions in your action. If you are choosing from the default actions, no need to select this. Then you can add to the filename…usually by adding sequence letters or numbers, if you’re saving to a sub-folder, this isn’t really necessary. Make sure the compatibility is selected and then hit ‘OK’. Then just like image processing, you can go find something else to do as this can take a long time depending on how many images, and the speed of your computer.

Here is an example of Vignetting. It is also a Black & White example minus the flowers-this effect was done in Photoshop. To learn how to do this contact me and I’ll make a post about it.

Keywords are helpful if you’re a stock photographer, but there are probably other uses, but I can’t think of any more. Metadata is what is embedded in your image file information. Just from this one image, I can see that it was shot using an aperture of 22 (f-stop) with a shutter speed of 1/200 of a second, and the ISO (film speed) was 800. I can also see the file size, dimensions and colour profile. I don’t really have a use for this info except for the camera settings, that’s why I minimize this panel to only show the top section.

There are many more features available on Bridge. Web Galleries and PDF creation are some examples, but the full scope of Bridge is something I have yet to discover, so as I learn more, I will update you. Learning is never-ending, and in my opinion it never should. Have Fun.

Using Adobe Bride to Organize your photos
Using Photoshop CS4 for beginners who want to tweak family photos
Using “Henry’s Moments Online” for Printing in Canada
Artisteer automated website design-good for blog templates
….and more.

And if there’s anything you want me to write about, send me a msg and I’ll try to make it happen!

I just to have to write this quick post because I’m so excited about the new logo our friend Marc designed for us. Out of the goodness of his heart. We didn’t even get around to submitting the font details or anything and he took upon himself to finish the project. What he came up with was nothing short of awesome! He is a rock star in my eyes! He does run his own multimedia company, so it’s only natural that he would be awesome, but I still want to share our new image with you.

So here it is with a dark backround and white lettering (I just love the layout):

And here is a horizontal version with black letter for light backgrounds:

To visit our new website or to get some pricing on photography (if you’re in the market) Wander over to juiceebee.com I’ve also update our pricing cards with the new logo and some new titles for our packages. (flowers and cool insects)

Here is the rest of my post that I thought was lost….

My first app post seems to generate some traffic, so I’m going to update and list some new apps I’ve acquired. Some of them are free, some I paid for and some were once free and are possibly now paid. So here it is.

2. Fish Food Frenzy Free by Sputnik Games -this version is free but has ads at the top, if you want rid of the ads you can upgrade. The game is set around a little fish who must eat smaller fish and avoid getting eaten. There is a similar game on Xbox 360 and I love both.

6. Sun Scroll Book -This app offers many different novels for reading. Currently I’m reading Fanny Hill, but the features apply to most books. There is a night reading feature as well as a Lock Rotation, which is handy in bed so the screen doesn’t constantly move around on you. I also like the Table of Contents is designed like the rays of a sun and spin to show more chapters. There is also a bookmark feature, where you can have multiple bookmarks. I go this book and some other for free from AppTrakr, but they are not currently free…but other titles are always showing up.

7. Shrek Kart by Gameloft -I believe I had this in my free app article, but I’ve since downloaded the paid version. The reason being that you can play multiple characters and unlock more tracks. My son and DH have linked up and raced against each other, which is fun.

8. CTV Olympics by Indusblue Inc. -a handy app that you can have either free or paid. You can see medals at a glance and the upcoming schedules for the remaining events. This company also has apps for Much Music and Pet Adoptions.

10. Culinary Collections by Sun Scroll – another free book collection I found on AppTrakr from Sun Scroll. It has thousands of recipes for all kinds of occassions. It’s very comprehensive.

That’s all the apps for now…but again I’m going to say how much I love AppTrakr…check it out.

Here is a quick list for now, because after typing a whole article and trying to find links, Firefox decided to crash on me and silly me didn’t save and Wordpress didn’t autosave at any point. I’m now too frustrated to write the whole thing again.

1. Jungle Crash Land by Donut Games -fun game with missiles and crashing, what more do you need.

2. Photo Caddy by Aspyre Solutions -paid app that is full of photography tips for pros and ams alike. Every photo situation imaginable is covered with tips and suggestions as well as a spot to make notes and global user section.

3. Kijiji Classifieds – app that accesses the main website. You can post and view, as well as watch ads all from you iPhone. It is free.

4. Buggle by Top Meadow -fun matching game where you have to save bugs from the spider’s web.

5. World Series of Poker by glu Games -free Texas Hold Em app. Good for anyone who loves poker. You can build a career and profile and there is a bluetooth feature.

This is a short list, but really my favorite place to go to find FREE app is AppTrakr. They post apps that normally have a fee, but are at the moment-free. You need to check back frequently because the lists are always changing.

One of the companies I like to use for creating photo books, is Photobook Canada. This an international franchise with locations all over the world. (Photobook Worldwide)

This company requires the download of their software- “My Photo books Editor” to edit your layouts in. Many other companies like Pikto in Toronto use very similar versions of the same software. The difference really comes down the sizes offered by that company, and a direct link for uploading your content to their servers for production.

Why Photo Book Canada vs. Walmart or Costco?

Well, I guess if you’re trying to save money, the obvious choice would be the latter two choices. But if you want quality and a great degree of control, Photobook Canada is the way to go. (They also deliver) Photobook Canada offers quality paper and secure binding, but besides that, the software offers automated options for those of you who are either in a hurry to design a layout, or not comfortable with design. I would suggest sorting your photos for publishing into a separate folder-that way you know that you have the nice poses etc. and that way you can just ’select all’ when opening photos in the software.

Using the Software:

Once you have installed the Photo Book Editor, you will choose between either, ‘Create New Book’, ‘Fast Track’, and ‘Open Saved Book’. So for those first timers, just ignore the third option for now, but once you have started a book and want to go back to it, this is what you’ll select.

So once you have selected Fast Track for making an automated book, you’ll have to choose what orientation you want your book to be; Landscape, Portrait, or Square, this will really depend on your photos and the purpose of the book. Think about what size your are going to have and how many photos you want on each page.

I’m going to choose ‘Kids’ to showcase both of my boys because one is turning 3 and one is 7 months old, I really don’t want to use Baby Boy for my older child. I really just want to show the variety of backgrounds available within the software. When you’re doing it for yourself, you can toggle between the themes to see the different styles. After selecting the theme, you’ll be prompted to select your photos. You can choose between 41 and 1497 images! The book I selected will contain 40 pages (20 sheets double sided) and in most cases you can add more pages for an additional fee.

So I’ve decided to use pictures from Christmas, only because they were nicely sorted in a separate folder already. After you select them, you’ll have a chance to preview them, rotate and re-order them if needed.

I didn’t have to rotate anything in this example, so I just clicked okay. Now I have the option of putting a caption on either the front cover, or under the first picture of the book. I’m choosing front cover for this book.

And now here’s the summary of my book before the software creates the book for me:

It takes only a few moments as it creates your book, and once it loads, you can get busy previewing and making adjustments that you see fit. Here is a quick glance of the workspace with some points of interest. (right click-view image if you can’t read my notes-sorry)

Each photo on the page is within a ‘frame’ – you can move each frame around, and within each frame you can zoom your picture and move it around to have ideal cropping. You can add more frames to pages, and then you can drag photos to be set in the frame-or as a single or double page background. You can add text on any page and there are text editing tools -just like any word processor. When you are moving frames around, make note of the edges where the paper will be cropped during production, you’ll also notice grid lines to help you align frames. It is also possible to rotate frames to be set on a diagonal, if you want to add some creativity to the layout.

There are also some image enhancement tools, with B&W and Sepia Filters. You can also select a photo as a background and there is a handy ‘image fade’ tool that makes the image as a background less distracting -if you’re adding more frames on top. Plus there are enhancements to brighten or sharpen photos. While these tools are great to have in this software, if you have access to a photo editing program like Photoshop or iPhoto, you should make these adjustments ahead of time there, as these actions slow down the program and don’t have same customization that Photoshop has.

This is where I’m going to stop my exercise of making a photobook, because once you select ‘Send to photobook’ the wheels start turning as your book is being processed. What happens is each page will create a pdf for you to PROOF before sending to the printers. This can take some time depending on your computer, so this would be a good time to go make a tea, or throw in a load of laundry, or eat…whatever you like.

Very Important:

I strongly recommend taking the time to view EACH page zoomed in to check for any mistakes…especially for spelling, because one you have approved the Proof and uploaded you cannot ammend anything, and any mistakes on the layout or design will not be covered under any guarantees by the company. Photobook Canada has 2 options for sending to the printers, you can upload to their servers (provided you have a fast connection) or save to a disc and mail it to them. The second option obviously adds to the time in receiving your actual book, so uploading is faster in the long run.

You will most like be asked to create a profile, and will have to provide your payment info, but all is secure, so not to worry. You can also order multiple copies of the same book, which is handy because otherwise you have to go through the proofing and uploading process all over again, which so time-consuming.

I have created 2 books with this company and I have been happy with the process. The first one I made took an unusual amount of time, so when I contacted them, they informed me that when the book went to Quality Control, they noticed the binding was no good, so they remade the book. For my inconvenience, they gave me a gift certificate for a free book of the same size and type. I thought that was great customer service. The second book was a large (and I mean huge) landscape book and the quality was great and the book arrived in only 9 business days-just like promised. For more info on this process click here.

Here is a glimpse of the Worldwide site. Note the countries offering the service.

Keep on the lookout for deals, Photobook Canada constantly has promos, for example, my second book was 40% off if it was ordered before a certain date…which was awesome for me because I had to add 4 more pages which added to the cost. Some international franchises also offer additional products like boxes or cases for your book. Canada doesn’t offer any of those at this time, but I’m sure they will one day.

You can also become a fan on Facebook and get informed first of promos they have.

Don’t be afraid to play around with all the setting, you’ll find tonnes of inspiration when you know the full scope of the software’s capabilities. Let me tell you how amazing it felt to get my first book in the mail, and see how great it looked. I was quite proud.

I just want to make an additional note for more advanced users. If you are very Photoshop-Capable, I would suggest getting the specs for the book and creating a layout in photoshop so that you can take advantage of all the tools and layering abilities in Photoshop. Just save each page layout as a jpeg and when you create the photobook, just add the jpegs as single or double page backgrounds. I find this save a lot of time, as my first book was using solely the software, whereas my second book was made using Photoshop alone. I still spent a lot of time in Photoshop, but the program offers so many more options not available in the Photobook Editor.

Have fun making your memories stand out using a product that is made through a digital process. I like to think of this as digital scrapbooking.

I’m by no means a gushy girl, but there are songs that make me tear up every time I hear them, there’s the ones that make me yearn for days gone by. I’m gonna have to break out the iTunes to do this one.

• Eyes Without A Face-Billy Idol (I just love the mood of this song, and who doesn’t love Billy Idol-seriously?)

• Lovesong-The Cure (I can listen to this song over and over and over and over….)

• Sexy Bitch -David Aguetta feat. Akon (just kidding, making sure you were paying attention lol -it’s a great jam tho)
• More Than Words-Extreme (right up there with Mr. Big’s-Be With You-oh how I miss grade 7 lol)

• One Thing -Finger Eleven (Great song-I think the band recorded this song drunk…still turned out awesome though)

• These Are The Days of Our Live-Queen (It’s not so much a love song to a lover, but more towards a friend of family member, there is something eerie but sweet, when you know that this is the last song Freddie Mercury ever made a video for and perhaps last song he wrote before he died.)

These Are the Days of Our Lives-Queen (click to watch the video)

• Even In the Quietest Moments-Supertramp (Not only does this song have sentimental reasons for me because my father passed away in 2003 and was a huge fan of Supertramp, this is one of their best songs ever-I actually made a video montage with pics of my dad to this song and put it on a DVD for my mom)

• He’s Everything You Want-Vertical Horizon (Reminds me of an ex-more a turbulent love song…enough said)
• Blister in the Sun-Violent Femmes (just kidding again…love song for a horny teenaged boy maybe lol)

Okay so minus the Joke Songs, that 7, but how can you realistically pick only 6!

I must also tell you that when I was finding the songs, I was listening to iTunes and I’m now currently listening to Go Speed Racer at my 3 year old son’s request! lol

I really could go on for days with my favorite songs, I am a huge music fan with my tastes ranging from Spice Girls to Marilyn Manson. Hmm.

And btw, I’m pretty sure all these are available on the iTunes store.

So in my search of affiliates, I have opened myself to some U.S companies, and have found Secondlife.com. I think I remember first hearing about it on CSI:NY when to catch the bad guy Mac Taylor (aka Gary Sinise, who I Love!) had to go into the virtual world. I first thought it was fictional upon watching the show, but yesterday I realized through my affiliate site, that it is, in fact a real thing. Hunh!

So I signed up. First to become an affiliate, and second to have a ’second life’. LOL

It downloads software onto your computer so that you can peruse around and live your life faster…I guess. Well I got started changing my appearance, which has endless possibilities-and all kinds of other new people came flying to the help island-yes flying, you can fly in this universe. The one catch is that you start your life with no money if you start up for free. There are premium memberships available, but I’m yet to figure it all out, and when I do, I’ll let you all know.

Well in my quest for virtual beauty I crashed my computer! lol Mainly because I operate on an old PowerPC G4…even photoshop gives me headaches, but it’s very hard to part with my faithful companion.

So today, I found out I’ve been accepted to their affiliate program, cool. I’m gonna spend some more time on this virtual world and get back to you, because I find it very fascinating, and never thought myself one to get invovled in a virtual reality, so this will be fun.

Stay tuned.

My son LOVES  ‘CARS’! He has almost every character from the movie, as well as pyjamas, the DVD and now the games. Mater-Nationals.

First we had the Mater-Nationals DS version, and our main objective (me and my DH) was to unlock all the characters for him. It quickly turned into an obsession, and we have unlocked all but Filmore! Ahh! We’ve played all the tracks and almost all the challenges, and he is the only one left to unlock. This game is without a doubt one of the most fun games I have ever played, and I’m not a fan of Racing games, but this lands a super close 2nd to Mario Kart (DS). (hint: for Mario Kart Wii, I find the nunchuck will beat out someone using a wheel anytime…shhh)

So last week I stopped off at EB Games to buy my son a new case for the DS as we needed some support because he fell with it open and broke one of the hinges. I managed to ‘MacGuyver’ it back together with electrical tape but, I was still weary of it’s strength. I managed to find an awesome Nerf case that has foam padding (like the toys) and a snap in receptacle with it’s own hinges. (It’s the best money I ever spent.)

Anyways I bought the case and found a previously played copy of the Cars: Mater-National for Wii, and since we don’t have very many games for Wii yet, I bought it! This game goes much further than the DS version. It is really great, and has a story mode complete with Monster Truck capability. (a la Monsters Inc. reference from the movie) You can drive all over Radiator Springs, and find mini games to complete to unlock things. You can also get custom paint jobs for most of the characters.

Anyone who has a child who LOVES Cars, this is a great addition to your collection of toys.

I just wanted to write a quick note about my Photography company Juicee Bee Productions. We have just completed our new website featuring a Grand Flash Gallery and Availability Calendar that are both Word Press plugins. We also found a great WP theme to use.

In fact our entire website was created on WordPress(dot org)! Amazing right! If you venture to our site, you’ll notice how ‘un-bloggy’ it looks. We even have a featured article homepage but it only shows custom fields with Photographs. The best thing about having this site, as opposed to a flash or html site, is that both my partner and I can update and maintain it, and we live on opposite sides of a Lake. Using Cyberduck for ftp uploads, I can add to each gallery from my collection and vice versa. This is also where you can view the contents of your ‘wp-content’ folders and make changes to code outside of the WordPress editor.

We also have the Contact Form 7 plugin so potential clients can ask questions without having to open their email programs. Another plugin we use is the Meta SEO pack -we found that other ones didn’t work with the hosting company we are using, so keep that in mind if you’re having problems with that.

Something else I really like using is Google Analytics. You have to have an account, but once you add sites and are given the code, you can download the WP plugin and enter the code to start tracking your traffic.

There are many other plugins I like for my personal blog, but for a business website, those are the only ones we need as we are not planning on writing articles. If we do, we will have a sub-domain created and download WP and have it as a separate page link.

I think customers coming to the site just want the information pertaining to them, and they want to find it fast and easy. And if those coming are blog readers, then they can go to the link as they so choose.

I thought I learned a lot about Word Press(dot com) from my own blog, but my company site has opened my eyes to even more possibilities. It really is a great platform, and has so much customization available. I will admit, that not everyone will understand it at first, and some may never understand, but Word Press is my new favorite Digital ‘thing’ these days. I know I’m probably really late in jumping on that bandwagon, but I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon.

My son has had major tooth decay in his baby teeth, so because he’s under 3 they recommend using anesthesia for fixing it all at once. It was not from a bottle, because he was breastfed, but his 4 front teeth had to come out as well as some molars needing root canals and caps. Eeek! I know.

Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto is THE best place to go if your child needs surgery. I was very concerned about payment because Dental is not covered even though the anesthetic was. Treatment of this magnitude would cost upwards of $2000! The night before surgery, I talked to my aunt about it, who is a dental assistant, and she told me to have them not do anything that wasn’t NEEDED, like cleanings etc. I ended up getting my mom to agree to lend me money in case I couldn’t cover it all…but who really wants to do that.

There is a program in Ontario called “Children In Need of Treatment” for kids under 18. I thought we were too late and too far into the process to qualify for this, but it is really an amazing program. It isn’t for general maintenance, it is for kids who are in need of treatment like cavities and extractions etc. Every time there is a need, you need to re-assess, but there are a few clinics that perform the work through the Region of York-specifically to my case.

I took my son to the hospital alone, and left my younger son with my mom for the day. We arrived in 6B, the pre-anesthesia clinic where they take vitals, get them into hospital gowns and ask health related questions. Everyone goes here first, no matter what type of surgery is being performed. Our surgery was booked for 2pm, but we had to arrive 2 hours prior. What a LONG time for a toddler to not eat or drink anything! I avoided eating also, so that I would feel his pain and not rub it in his face. We waited there before being taken with another family down to the 2nd floor pre-surgery waiting room. Which is, btw, way cooler than the first waiting room. It has 4 video game systems, and a floor full of infant-toddler toys and a bookshelf full of books. The nurses also hand out stickers to all the kids.

The 2nd floor waiting room is where you talk to the anesthesiologist about what pain meds they may or may not administer, as well as possible intubation, and the side effects of each. The Doctor performing the surgery will also come and speak to you about the procedure and confirm the consent form is signed and understood. Dr. Judd, was the dentist who was performing my son’s surgery. He had a warmth about him, and was very easy to approach about our financial problems. I asked him if there were some procedures he could leave out because of our financial situation and he advised me that all of the procedures were necessary. He went on to say that he would waive his fee on the cleanings etc. so that I wouldn’t stress over cost. He then remembered the ‘CINOT’ program and said he would make a call to his accounting department to get them to look into a rush assessment.

So he returned and told me that once my son was in the OR, I was to go see Cheryl about the program. I told him I appreciated his help and concern. He assured me not to worry about fees and left. Our anesthesiologist finally arrived and spoke to us, well mostly me, as my son was immersed in his DS, about all that stuff. Her nurse came over to ask whether there would be separation anxiety or not. I said it would most likely be due to his DS being taken away, so she said he could take it with him. She then asked him if he wanted a ride in a car or a wagon. He picked a wagon and said he was cold, so she got him a wagon, and couple blankets and off he went with a quick kiss from me. He didn’t even look back as she took him down the hall.

I was then taken to the parents waiting room where you have to check in with the Women’s Auxilliary and check out if you go for food. I had to check in and then right back out so that I could go to the dental accounting department, so I wasn’t there long. When I got in to see Cheryl, she had a big smile on her face and said, I was covered! She explained that they normally don’t accept things this way, but if you get a good person on the phone anything is possible. She also had to give our info while I was still upstairs, but assured me that the Privacy Act was in place, as always. She also told me that if I had not been accepted to the program, that Dr. Judd was going to waive his entire fee! Amazing! What great news.

I happily went on my way to get some food from the cafeteria, which is awesome btw. It’s in the atrium, and they have all kinds of food to choose from. I also grabbed a little something from the gift shop for my son and hurried back to the waiting room for 3pm. I noticed that there was a large LCD flat-screen TV with patients’ initials and their statuses. My son’s was ‘Ja. R’ – ‘In OR’. About 10 minutes later I looked up from my ipod to see a man I think is Dr. Judd, and I glance over to see ‘in recovery’ beside my son’s name. Dr. Judd does a double take and realizes he looked right at me and didn’t see me at first. He takes me into a separate room to discuss how the procedure went and praised me for my ‘brushing’ technique. Apparently I scrub them really good-even though my son hates it! He said that only 2 root canals were needed instead of 4 and that he stitched the sockets where the 4 front teeth were extracted to make healing easier on me. He said not to used sippy cups anymore, that straws are better for not pooling liquids in the mouth when swallowing isn’t happening, and told me if I keep up the brushing and weed out the sippy cups, my son shouldn’t have anymore cavities in his baby teeth. I told him of the CINOT covering the treatment and he was pleased and I thanked him again, and he re-assured me that he would’ve waived his fee. What a great dentist! You don’t hear of that too often.

Now I still had to wait for the screen to say ’see a volunteer’ before I could go see my son. So about 10 minutes after talking to the dr. about post op info etc. I was taken to recovery to see him. He was lying on his side with his Ikea kitty beside his face and looking all groggy…and cute. The nurse assigned to him was young and pretty and was smitten with him. She kept telling me what a good boy he was! My son? Obviously a side effect of anesthesia. He sucked back a freezie, learning very quickly to adapt to having no front teeth. He also seemed very annoyed with the frog in his throat which was cute and he hated having the IV pad still attached to him. After gulping an apple juice, he was detached from all the stuff, but was still wanting to snuggle in his blankets. We left around 4pm and were caught in rush hour…bleh, but he had a long nap on the way, and we stopped at the store to get him a new case for his DS because it was broken (a super awesome Nerf case btw), and a new game for the Wii. He sucked back a juice box, and was a mommy suck for the rest of the night, he was so calm and lovey, I knew it was only a side effect of the surgery, but I still enjoyed hearing him say ‘love you mommy’ over and over.

He woke up this morning and aside from commenting on how his teeth feel weird, he was back to his rambunctious self again.

Sick Kids Hospital is an Amazing place, and I feel so fortunate to live only 1 hour away!

UPDATE: As of March 14th, and this was originally published Feb. 3rd, this position still hasn’t been filled and they’ve upped the salary by $2000/a! So I guess I was right, and the guy was just being a complete ASS.

I am on maternity leave for another 5 months, but because my DH was laid off, I’m starting to panic about the finances. So I got this bright idea to start job hunting, for him, for me, mostly out of curiosity. I stumbled upon an ad for a ‘Graphic Artist’ at an embroidery company, in the next town. The pay was pretty decent considering the short commute.

Since I’m a photographer/digital artist, I looked into it further. Here is part of the job ad:

Skill Requirements:
Education: Completion of high school, Some college/CEGEP/vocational or technical training, Some university (I have college training in the ‘general’ area)
Credentials (certificates, licences, memberships, courses, etc.): Not applicable
Experience: Experience an asset
Languages: Speak English, Read English, Write English
Area of Design Specialization: General graphic design, Visual art, Corporate identity, Multimedia, Forms
Business Equipment and Computer Applications: IBM, MacIntosh, QuarkXpress, Illustrator, Photoshop, PageMaker, Corel Draw (I have used Illustrator-a little, I’m advanced on Photoshop, and I used Pagemaker in high school. But I have not used Quark Xpress or Corel Draw-all of which I made perfectly clear in the email that contained my resume)
Work Setting: Corporation
Specific Skills: Consult with clients to establish nature and context of designs and illustrations for reproduction, Produce final designs or illustrations (I am totally capable of handling these responsibilities, with maybe a small learning curve, but my advanced computer skills means that I can learn others quite quickly)
Essential Skills: Reading text, Document use, Numeracy, Writing, Oral communication, Working with others, Job task planning and organizing, Significant use of memory, Finding information, Computer use, Continuous learning (all of these skills I am good at)
Other Information: Redrawing and resizing company logo’s to be printed on promotional products. Obtain and supply quotes. Order taking and order processing various customer service functions. Web Design. (I have actually re-drawn and re-sized logo’s for broadcast…print isn’t a far cry. Then it seems, not only do they want a graphic artist, they want a CSR as well…hmmm)

So I send off my resume, on a whim really, and in it, says that I have certain computer programs as skills, but I didn’t specify on my resume to what degree my expertise lay with each program. So I made sure I was honest in my email, about how much knowledge I have in the programs specified.

I get a response back the next day with an attached job description telling me to look it over and let them know if I was still interested. Here’s what the description said:

“Position:  Graphic Artist, Customer Service & General Office

Tasks include:

• Web Design and maintenance
• Producing Paper Proofs for client approval
• Ordering promotional products and checking for accuracy
• Design and send E-mail Blasts
• Order processing and follow-up
• Assisting corporate clients in our showroom
• Writing and completing sales transactions

Business Hours:

Monday – Friday: 8:00 am – 4:30 pm

Thursday’s:  Must be available to work 8:00 am – 8:00 pm bi-weekly.

Extended holiday hours include working Saturday’s during the months of November and December.

The successful candidate must have excellent written, communication and math skills and be knowledgeable in Microsoft Office.”

So I think this sounds okay, and I could handle this job, seeing as I’m a great multi-tasker and I’m really quick to learn new things. I’ve also been hired for jobs I was less qualified for because someone recognized my keenness for learning. I send a reply saying it sounds good and I would like an interview. A couple hours later, I get a phone call asking me when I can schedule an interview, and we decide on Wednesday afternoon. He said I would fill out an application and then we would have the interview. (period…no mention of any test)

I’m now scrambling to figure out what I’m going to do with my kids if I get hired, and how much child care will be, and how I’ll really be able to leave my 6 month old already. I also have to figure out who’s gonna watch my kids during the interview. I start preparing a list of questions I have for them etc. I then spend the entire day getting my clothes ready, feeling excited about the chance to get into the ‘real world’ again.

So DH says he’ll watch the kids, my friend says she’ll watch them for only $50/day, and we figure out how it all works with the salary in terms of being worth it.

I get there, and it’s a showroom for corporate uniforms/products and gift baskets. The guy takes me over to a table in the showroom to fill out my application, after seeming surprised to see me-I was only 10 minutes early. He says to bring it back to the office when I’m done…so I do, and he makes me wait again, while he goes over my stuff-I’m assuming. Then he fetches me to do a test! A test! He asks me if I know Illustrator, I tell him only a little but that I’m way better at Photoshop, and I use it more. So he brings me to a computer and sits me down with a picture of a man in a uniform with a white background and asks me to remove a piece of background…so I do, then he says, remove the rest. So I do, with great ease. Then he wants to test me in Illustrator by having me turn the text in a logo to black. I manage to fuddle my way through this task, and then he asks me to take the globe graphic being used a ‘letter O’ and remove the lens flare and get rid of the grid lines on the continents. This is where I get stumped. I tried a couple things that didn’t work completely and I turn around and tell him I’m stumped. Now don’t forget I did say in my email, AND tell him walking into this test, that Illustrator was not my forte. Yet, he still seemed annoyed with me and tried to point out in my resume that I listed Illustrator as one of my skills. So I pointed out to him that it was version CS and we’re now on CS4, and he still acted as if I blatantly lied on my resume. (I mean wouldn’t you realize that if the version was 4 revisions old that would indicate the last time I used it?? Hmm? Wouldn’t you?) So I then reminded him that I mentioned in my resume that I only had a ‘little’ experience and that some programs I didn’t even know.

He tells me he’s going to have to cut the interview short! What? I asked him if there was no room for a learning curve and he said no. That 90% of their work needs Illustrator skills at a higher level than what I had…WTF? Am *I* delusional, or was that NOT specified on the job ad or description. He didn’t even give me the courtesy of a full interview just to humour me. Like really? If I had had the right skills you would’ve taken the time to get to know me, but because I didn’t, you can’t be bothered to give me the illusion of having a chance. I mean talk about wasting MY time.

Here’s what I have to say. Good luck to them. For the amount of work they want done, and the level of expertise they want, they aren’t offering enough money to be picky about people. Especially in a sub-urban area. I could very easily caught up to their standards and given them great customer service, but now they’ll never know. I mean, it’s an embroidery shop…what expert Illustrator is gonna work for that low of salary and ALSO do the customer service and office duties they require? Maybe someone desperate. So again, Good Luck.

I’m not upset that I wasn’t qualified, I’m upset that he didn’t show me the courtesy of a full interview for my time. I mean, I did show up on time, dressed appropriately, AND did know SOME stuff…why couldn’t he finish the interview for ‘future reference’? I wonder if after going through all the applicants and realizing he won’t find his ‘perfect fit’ will he call me back? NOTHING like this has ever happened to me before. It’s just so weird.

Needless to say I was pissed. I also had to drive home in a blizzard btw!